This should definitely bring some relief to the Sri Ram Sene chief. The joke’s on the pink chaddi campaigners this time. An anonymous group on Thursday started a pink condom drive asking people to send condoms to the ‘self-righteous and progressive people’ involved in the chaddi drive that forced Mutalik to give up his pledge to stop couples from celebrating Valentine’s Day.
The new pink crusaders, in their blog (thepinkcondomcampaign.blogspot.com), said they were “more democratic and transparent” than the chaddi walas who were nothing but a bunch of “self-righteous sickulars (seculars)”.
“We are ordinary Hindus, who don’t bark on TV channels to defend our faith, but we definitely get hurt when some people bark against our faith. We know that not everything is right with Hindu society, and things need to be improved upon but we don’t need them (the pink chaddi brigade) to reform us,” the anonymous campaigners said. About their campaign they said, “The chaddi walas claim themselves to be pub-going, loose and forward — a condom will protect them from AIDS.”
The chaddi campaigners, however, are unfazed. “We had expected such a retaliation and counter-protest long back,” said Benson Issac, the Bangalore coordinator for the pink chaddi campaign.
The condom campaigners have distanced themselves from the Sene but they claimed they supported the RSS for its social work and its efforts to fight ‘sickulars’ like the chaddi walas.
The BJP, however, is not complaining. SRS Shivshankar, BJP’s general secretary in Bangalore, backed the campaigners but denied having anything to do with the drive.
“This is a fitting reply for the women who go to pubs and get drunk. This is a good message,” Shivshankar said.